I think I'd like to kill my stepson

In My Humble Opinion
41

i’m probably a baaaad person for this minor hijack, and certainly hope i’m not engaging in DNFTT behavior, but i just GOTTA ask:

faldureon, where the bloody H___ does one get the Magic Crystal Balls that allow you to see EXACTLY how your marriage and/or child raising is going to turn out, say 5/10/15 years down the road??? i’d stake a staggering sum on the bet that a significant number of people wouldn’t have kids if they knew the marriage was doomed, or if they knew they were going to make a mess of the job with their kids.

now, just where exactly does this absolute knowledge come from which you spout so authoritatively about, huh?

42

So let me get this straight…

He idolizes his dad, and now his mom has gone off and married someone else, who hates him and has nothing in common with him. And wants to kill him.

He sulks, speaks in monosyllables, and can’t wait to go home.
What a shock.
The shock being that he responded much better than most teenagers would.

And what do you mean, “whatever the hell he does there”? Do you think he is off doing drugs or something, or are you just completely incapable of controlling your animosity towards the kid?

Let me guess the conversation:
Wife: Why won’t he come to Easter dinner? I really wanted him to…

You: Because he is slime! He is the fungus on the slime! He is treating you like dirt!

Wife: crying

You are just making the situation worse. I understand that your impulse is to slag anyone who makes your wife upset, but the fact is that it is very understandable that he no longer has an easy and close relationship with his mom. And you only make her feel worse by telling her that her son is horrible.
Your step son has every right to feel betrayed, to be less comfortable and less open with his mom, and to feel downright uncomfortable or even scared around you, someone who just exudes hate towards him.

Having said all this, I know that it is hard. You want so much to fix everything, but there is no way to do so. But try to remember that your step son never asked to be put into this situation.
For the things like speaking in monosyllables, I can only assume you have no teenage kids of your own, or you would know that that is common even in good circumstances, which decidedly does not apply in your case. Cut him some slack.
I would also suggest counselling for him and his mother. They have some issues to work through, but from everything you have said I think they could make great progress in counselling.

43

Stepdad chiming in…

2 stepsons, 14 years old, 17 years old.

only major difference was that she was widowed and not divorced, the boys were babies when he died.

My beautiful wife had herself talked into being the doormat for her son. “You always put your children first” She was taught. What the sons learned was that mom gets last place and no respect because she jumped whenever they yelled her name.

So…

You’re real problem is not your stepson, the real problem is/will be your relationship with your wife. Your stepson does not even live with you full time, for crying out loud. You and your wife would both benefit with some counselling, however brief, she might need to learn to let go of her desire to control her son (trust me, it’s a control issue). She will need to “let go” and allow him to set his own limits, and not go somewhere if he doesn’t want to go.

You, my friend, need to learn to stand up to the plate and say something like: “You are 16 years old, since it would be wrong, and illegal to punch you in the mouth for what you just said to my wife, I will give you this final warning, any more disrespect will result in me dragging you into the car and taking you back home to daddy’s house where you will, no doubt, be much happier”

You have a chance to be mentor, or at least a good example. Believe me, he’s watching everything you say and do. Besides, it’s your house, you do not have to put up with that crap. He’s not a little boy, he’ll survive if he’s dropped off on the porch of the house where he lives even if daddy’s not home. If he won’t get into the car, tell him to start walking and kick him out of the house. Point him in the direction of the nearest bus stop. Do all of this politely but firmly.

The biggest problem some teenage boys have is that they are far too shielded from the consequences of their behavior.

If all else fails tell him that according to the rules of the house there is no rule #6! (obligatory Monty Python reference.)

Hang in there.

44

Uh gee… thanks :stuck_out_tongue:

I was a problem teenager due in part to my father’s death when I was 15. My mother cured the problem with splashy regular suicide attempts. I don’t recommend it for everybody, but other than intense social maladjustment, recurrent nightmares and a pathological fear of dark and silence it never did me any harm.

I think some Confuse a Teen therapy may be in order. Tell him that you know how hard it must be for him to cope with the fact that he’s gay and that you support him completely. Leaving P-FLAG literature in his bedroom may be a nice visual aid. When he insists that he’s not gay, just pat him on the back act all the more supportive. If he becomes physically agressive, grab him in a bear hug and tell him “You don’t have to become violent to prove you’re a man… gay men are just as much men as anybody else.”
Then the next time you see him tell him that “please be careful with your girlfriend… you have no idea the horrors that an unplanned pregnancy can be at your age”. If he reminds you that you thought he was gay a few weeks before, just look at him reassuringly and tell him “Son, I never thought that of you…” Next time ask him if he always uses a clean needle when he’s shooting up; if he denies being a drug user tell him “admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery”- if he still insists he’s not using, tell him “lots of young gay men use drugs…it’s how they kill the pain.”

Hopefully this will confuse and disorient him to the point that he will not be able to mount an offensive, or at very least make him avoid your house until he’s 25. If not, there’s always the “Mel Gibson’s PASSION OF THE CHRIST BOARDING SCHOOL FOR BOYS WHO NEED A WHIPPIN’”.

45

My parents separated when I was thirteen, and I was pretty horrible to my mother for a couple years after that.

Of course, she was also pretty horrible to me. She made us feel really guilty whenever we went to our father’s house, she kept us appraised of all the legal wrangling over custody, she filed for sole custody of us even though we’d all agreed the parents would have joint custody. If I wrote her letters in red drippy “bloody” ink that said “PLAY YOUR GAMES!”, it was because I was thirteen and really hurting and didn’t know how to deal with what was going on.

Is it possible that you’re overlooking some of that? Are there complications in your wife’s relationship with her son that, perhaps, love for her is blinding you to?

Also, what was so bad about him not coming over for Easter? Had he agreed previously to come over and then canceled plans, or was it planned without asking him whether he wanted to come over? If the former, then yeah–that’s shitty. But if you were making plans for him without involving him in the plans, then hopefully y’all will learn a lesson from it. Once a kid is sixteen, they’re gonna be pretty unhappy about people not considering their desires in making plans.

Does he need a license where he lives with his dad? If he doesn’t, there’s no reason why he should get one. Your wife needs to take care of herself, and she can certainly choose whether to take him shopping. But if she chooses not to, that’s the end of y’all’s involvement in whether he gets a license.

Finally, is it possible that he’s a lot friendlier and more interesting when you’re not around? Despite your later denials, it really does sound like you despise him, and if he’s not an idiot, he realizes that, and there’s a good chance the feeling is mutual. Maybe you can arrange to let the kid have a fair amount of time alone with his mom?

Daniel

46

That was dang funny, Sampiro, and it raises a good point,

KEEP YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR!

47

I am not saying I have MCBs that predict successfull marriages for sale. I am saying that if you get married, have children and then get divorced you’ve wronged your children by failing to provide them with a family. The fact that you didn’t know it would turn out that way does not excuse you (ask any hostage taker). So when they do wrong to you in retaliation you can’t just go and blame them, you must accept responsibility for the effects your actions have on others whether predictable or not.

48

faldureon, your statements aren’t making any sense. You seem to put alot of importance on whose fault it is. It doesn’t matter at this point. What matters is that a lad who is pretty much an adult has to take responsiblity for his behavior, regardless of how bad his childhood was.

Divorce? Aaaaww… how sad, mommy has a new love? It’s her life, now grow up and move on kid.

49

added emphasis mine

i beg to differ. you DISTINCTLY said that if you can’t raise kids right/make your marriage last for all time, then you shouldn’t have children at all. so where are these omniscient parents-to-be that know EVERYTHING will turn out perfectly, so they are therefore entitled to produce offspring.

face it, dude. you’re dealing with imperfect human beings. the majority of them really do try their best to DO their best. but shit happens. people change. or you find out that the person you thought they were isn’t who they were at all. so, by your rulebook, somebody who wound up married to a drunken abusive spouse should stay married, exposing both themselves and their children to possibly increasing levels of peril, rather than expose the children to the dreadful trauma of divorce. or stay with a philandering spouse who tramples on your feelings and self-esteem, while possibly teaching the kids that marriage is all about whatever pleases one party, at the expense of everyone else. or…
there just aren’t enough “rolleyes” smilies in the whole Web…

50

I think you inadvertently hit on the important point here: in this specific relationship (stepfather/stepson), only one person is an adult. Not “pretty much an adult.” One person IS an adult; the other person is still a kid who’s going through an extremely difficult stretch.

plnnr needs to make sure that he acts like an adult: even if this kid doesn’t act how he wants, he needs to treat the kid with respect and compassion.

:rolleyes: Real nice. If it’s her life, then don’t involve the kid in it. But if plnnr is going to be at home whenever the kid comes home to see his mom, then it’s the kid’s life, too.

She’s a wife, but she’s also a mother, and she’s got responsibilities toward her kid that have nothing to do with plnnr. Might be best if plnnr backs away from the kid as much as possible.

Daniel

51

I am saying that if you get married, have children and then get divorced you’ve wronged your children by failing to provide them with a family.

That’s not always a fair statement.

I hate divorce, but if, say, Dad is beating up on Mom and the kids and is gambling away his paycheck at the casino, I can’t see how a divorce is “failing” the children. Failing them would be to keep them in a chaotic, violent environment.

People get married with the best of intentions, and then sometimes a spouse TOTALLY changes. Maybe they get into drugs. Maybe they get sick. There are a lot of things that can happen that people have no warning of, and you can’t hold them responsible for not knowing the future.

All parents make mistakes with their kids. We are not perfect and we go into parenthood blind: we’ve never been parents before the first kid comes along, so we don’t know what we’re doing. Most parents, though, are doing their very best, and condemning them for not having a crystal ball is just wrong and cruel.

That said …

Divorce? Aaaaww… how sad, mommy has a new love? It’s her life, now grow up and move on kid.

THIS seems to be the attitude of some divorced parents, and it’s equally as nasty as the above.

When you bring a kid into this world, they didn’t ask to be born. It is not too much to ask that for 18 years, your kid is the center of your universe and you put them first and do what’s best for them. Some people divorce for very good reasons, and other people divorce because they are putting their own happiness and needs above those of their children. Telling a kid to “suck it up” and “get over it” when their family has been shattered is evil. Kids are people, too, not accessories that you should be able to drag in and out of situations while you try to find yourself and make yourself happy. Parents have no right to expect their children to act like grown-ups when they themselves refuse to.

52

I’d like to go on record as saying that this can apply even if no one is beating up on anyone or gambling anything away. My mother and father are both wonderful people - intelligent, gentle, compassionate people who were fantastic parents. After three years of marriage, during which they produced little old me, they had come to loathe one another with passion usually reserved for blood feuds in bad science fiction. Although I was very small when they were divorced, I can still remember snatches of life with them as a couple - lots of fighting, yes, but also a kind of seething resentment that made everything seem tense and unpleasant, like the house was on the verge of catching fire at any moment.

My parents were divorced when I was three and raised me cooperatively in two separate homes. They never ripped one another when I was around - being apart cooled their hatred for one another. Both eventually remarried, so I was able to learn what a functional and happy marriage is.

I can’t tell you how much it irks me when people stay in loveless, bleak marriages “for the sake of the children.” Trust me, you’re not helping them by staying together. You don’t fail your children by leaving an already broken marriage; you fail them by staying around.

53

Very well said storyteller .

When I was going through my own divorce, I was really concerned about the effect it may have on my young daughter. My neice, who was about 8 when my brother and her mother divorced, told me “Well, I’d rather come from a broken home than live in one.” That struck me as a great insight.

54

Depends, legally an adult? No. but it’s a grey area. some kids develope faster than others.

Backing away too much condones the behavior. I would get in his face, it’s what stopped my stepsons from being jerks to their mother. Teenagers don’t get “subtle”.

As for mom, she needs to stop trying to be a parent, and work on letting him learn to be a man. The parenting days are over, it’s time to be a mentor.

I only sound harsh because I’ve been there in spades.

Abbie Carmichael, In print I could see how someone would construe my comment as “nasty”. But I believe that wailing about how horrible junior’s life was is a waste of time if that’s all you do. The Prince of Denmark would be proud.

Yeah, having divorced parents can really stink. I had 'em. But like I said, it’s time to grow up and learn to not get abusive of another human being who is another man’s wife and your mother. Any one of those conditions deserves some basic modicom of respect, and that’s really hard for some teens. So maybe they need extra attention in this matter.

55

I agree. As a matter of fact I’ll go as far as broaden your statement a little bit. It’s time to grow up forget who stated the war in Iraq and put an end to the bloodshed and start building the country back up. It’s time to grow up and stop hunting down 100 year old Nazi officers who had anything to do with the holocaust. It’s time to grow up and forgive all the people who’ve wronged you as long as they couldn’t have avoided(like following direct orders) or predicted (like getting divorced) it.
But it doesn’t work that way. When I feel pain my first reaction is to do whatever it takes to stop feeling the pain. If I fail at that (as there is absolutely nothing I can do) I also start feeling anger on top of pain. And who do I direct the anger at? Exactly - whatever I think the cause of my pain is. And I am imperfect, my anger takes away from my ability to forgive people I am angry with, even though they may or may not even have done anything that needs forgiving.
The kid should move on but you really can not blame him for not doing so anymore then you can blame his parents for not being able to sustain a marriage.

PS

As far as little jewels like the one above go I am sorry if my posts brought out such an inconsiderate side in anybody that was not what I intended in any way or fashion.

56

I’m a stepmother, also to a very difficult child, so I completely understand your feelings, plnnr. People who haven’t experienced a truly awful child just don’t know what they are talking about. They think it’s just normal misbehavior, or in plnnr’s case normal teen surliness/divorce angst… but most of you don’t have a clue what it’s like to live with a truly difficult child. My (older) stepdaughter nearly killed two kids in our old neighborhood by collapsing an igloo on them. She’s about to be expelled from school… and she’s NINE. This is because she has screaming, raging temper tantrums where she bites herself and yells that she wants to die.*

Like** plnnr**, my biggest problem with this kid is the way she treats her father and her younger sister. She’s absolutely horrid to them. She actually does not act out that much over here, basically because I’ve said I’m not going to tolerate her awful behavior. As awful as she is to her father and sister, apparently she’s even worse to her mother. Of course, my husband and I think she needs some serious psychiatric help, including meds, but the one and only reason she’s NOT currently on meds is that her mother is blocking it. She’s in counseling, but as far as we can tell, it’s doing no good. Her behavior is actually WORSE since she started seeing her current (picked by mother) counselor. The counselor actually wants to send her to a consult with a psychiatrist, but Mommie Dearest won’t do it.

Anyway, back to plnnr’s problem. What I would suggest is convincing your wife that the kid shouldn’t be allowed to treat her badly in your house. It might go over better if you put the “blame” on yourself, so to speak. “I can’t stand to see him treat you badly, I find it very upsetting…” etc. If he’s not going to treat her with respect, he has to go back to dad’s, or him and mom have to go out somewhere. I think that he’s not needing psychiatric help like my stepdaughter… he’s just being a big ol’ ass, and someone needs to call him on it and tell him to knock it the f*** off. Sure, he has a right to be upset over his parent’s divorce, and he’s not obligated to like you (nor you him). But that in no way give him the right to treat his mother like crap.

*(I don’t think she’s actually suicidal… I think it’s an attention getting behavior, because her mother constantly uses idle threats of suicide and raging temper tantrums to get attention. My stepdaughter has just upped the ante by doing them both at the same time. As you might guess, her mother’s piss-poor parenting is a big factor here. When we had custody of her, she was difficult, but nowhere near the current level. Unfortunately, her mother has an unlimited supply of money to drag us through the courts, and we don’t. My husband is already bankrupted by the first custody battle… and even though he won, his ex’s deep pockets and determination to ruin our lives in any way possible meant that his daughters are back with their pitiful excuse for a mother during the week.)

57

I have to chime in as a child of divorce. It was the BEST thing that could have happened to my mother, myself and my brother. My stepfather gave me unconditional love that I never got from bio-dad (long, boring story) and as far as I am concerned, he is my father. So staying in a tense, unhappy, loveless marriage, yeah, that really gives a kid a roadmap for the future.
On the other hand, my SO has two small children and I am ready to throw myself in front of a bus because they are clearly possessed by demons. Sometimes. Sometimes they’re so sweet to me I think it’s all going to work out after all. And like my mom once said, the best thing about kids is they grow up and move away.

58

Wow, from divorce to the holocaust in just one paragraph! Your slope is quite slippery.

Seriously, I don’t quite see what you’re getting at here but I agree that forgiveness is important. It’s just about your number one responsiblity when you’ve been wronged. But that does not mean that there should be no consequences.

MinniePurl, God bless you for your trying to help your stepdaughter. I know where you are. It’s so hard when you have a child that crosses all the lines and noone knows what you’re talking about. Counselling and medication are probubly in her future. Protect yourself and your family and don’t make her the center of the universe. That will just drag you all down.

59

The parenting days are NOT over: sixteen-year-olds are neither legally nor culturally adults in our society. Or do you live in a nother country where this isn’t true? As long as he’s a minor, she’s got the parental role to fulfill.

I can agree with this. However, I’m still not seeing any specifics from plnnr on how this kid is being abusive of his mother: so far the only specifics I’ve seen (forgive me if I’ve missed some, please) are that the kid begged off of an Easter meal, and the kid asks his mom to take him shopping. This really comes across more as a personal dislike between plnnr and the kid than anything else, and should therefore be handled very differently.

Plnnr, can you offer any specific examples of this kid’s bad behavior?

Daniel

60

But the “parental role” changes over time.

Sorry, I used some fuzzy terminology earlier.

I’ll try and expound. Someone explained to me this way and I pretty much agree. “Parenting” comes in 3 stages. First stage is when they are infants, they need constant attention, care and protection.

Then 2nd stage: Childhood, they need teaching, rules and guidance, with increasing responsiblity as they merit it.

3rd stage is the young adulthood or teenage years, then it’s more of a mentoring role as you step back and try to let them make mistakes and learn how to live in the real world.

There can be no magic chart to show the exact date when one stops stage 2 and begins stage 3. There will be lots of overlap. Some kids mature at a younger age than others. Sometimes a kid will seem to be stuck in a childish phase and seem very immature. How many of us have met a 17 year old who still lies and steals and still throws temper tantrums.